D-47 boundary shift plan stirs no fuss

CRYSTAL LAKE – If there are objectors to a boundary shift proposal in Crystal Lake District 47, they held their peace Thursday.

District officials hosted a hearing Thursday night at Husmann Elementary School regarding their proposal to send about 49 students who now attend Canterbury School on the district’s south side to either Coventry School or Indian Prairie School.

Superintendent Donn Mendoza provided a presentation on the proposed shift. The only ones there to hear it, though, were board Vice President Nancy Gonsiorek, board members Rob Fetzner and Rob Routzahn, Husmann School Principal Linda Corteen and a reporter.

“I think probably nobody has a complaint about it,” Gonsiorek said as she surveyed the near-empty auditorium before opening the hearing. “It doesn’t affect that many people, and the people it does affect, it’s a logical boundary change.”

District 47 operates nine elementary schools, three middle schools and an early childhood center. Mendoza said that the district on the whole is seeing declining enrollments, but Canterbury bucks that trend.

Affected by the proposed change will be about 38 students in the neighborhood that Mendoza referred to as the “Presidential Section,” east of Randall Road off Miller Road.

These students, who currently are bused past Indian Prairie Elementary on their way to Canterbury, would attend Indian Prairie, Mendoza said.

Also affected would be about 11 students who live in the Virginia Road-Route 14-Teckler Boulevard triangle on the northeast side of Virginia Road. These students would go to Coventry.

The board is scheduled to vote on the matter at its regular meeting, which starts at 7 p.m. Monday at Husmann Elementary, 131 Paddock St.

If approved, the change would take effect for the 2013-14 school year. Of the affected students, those entering the fifth grade would have the option of remaining at Canterbury. The option also would be extended to their siblings, but only for one year, and transportation would be provided to neither.

Nine students who are in a dual-language program at Canterbury also would be afforded the option to remain, and would be provided transportation, Mendoza said.

The change would not alter the middle or high school progressions for any of the students.